Sunday, December 31, 2006

More than 16 years ago, five college students were brutally slain in Gainesville during the first week of classes at the University of Florida. The crimes sent the community into a panic, and it would take nine anxious months before Rolling was publicly named as a suspect.

Long after he confessed and was sentenced to death, he would make headlines as his case crawled through the appeals process.

Now those stories will be fewer and Rolling will be discussed in the past tense.

"Instead of being a current event, it takes its place in local history," said Spencer Mann, who was spokesman for the Alachua County Sheriff's Office at the time of the murders. He now works for the State Attorney's Office and was a witness at Rolling's execution.

A 52-year-old native of Shreveport, La., Rolling was executed by lethal injection Oct. 25 at Florida State Prison near Raiford. The event attracted throngs of protesters and national media attention. The execution itself will be remembered for Rolling singing a hymn as his last statement and failing to apologize to his victims' families.

Dianna Hoyt, stepmother of victim Christa Hoyt, said even if Rolling would have apologized, she wouldn't have believed it was sincere. After years of dealing with appeals, she said the execution was a relief.

"The next day I woke up and I felt a tremendous burden had been lifted," she said.

She hopes the memory of Rolling will fade, but the community continues to remember the victims. The memorial wall on SW 34th Street provides a lasting reminder of their names: Sonja Larson, Christina Powell, Christa Hoyt, Tracy Paules and Manuel Taboada.

Larson, 18, of Deerfield Beach, and Powell, 17, of Jacksonville, were the first to be found slain. The UF freshmen were discovered in their Williamsburg Village apartment on SW 16th Street on Aug. 26, 1990, the Sunday before classes started.

The next day, officers found the body of Hoyt, 18, of Archer. An Alachua County Sheriff's Office records clerk, she was found in the duplex apartment on SW 24th Avenue where she lived alone.

Two days later, the bodies of Paules and Taboada, both 23 and high school friends from Miami, were discovered in their Gatorwood apartment off Archer Road.

The horrific nature of the killings, which involved the mutilation and posing of the victims, shocked the community and sent UF students fleeing for home. The town was soon filled with law enforcement officers and reporters from across the nation.

Initially suspecting a UF freshman who exhibited bizarre behavior, police eventually turned their attention to Rolling. Ten days after the killing, Rolling had ended up in custody on robbery charges in Marion County. His DNA was later compared to crime scene evidence, proving police had the right man.

In 1994, Rolling entered a guilty plea as jury selection began in his trial. Nonetheless, he would appeal his death sentence on a variety of grounds over the next dozen years.

Rolling's attorney, Baya Harrison, handled his final appeal, arguing the lethal injection procedure was cruel and unusual punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court's rejection of the appeal paved the way for the execution.

The execution by lethal injection appeared to be conducted without problems. But Harrison said Angel Nieves Diaz's Dec. 13 execution, which took two rounds of chemicals and appeared to cause Diaz to writhe in pain, has now caused him to question the whole process.

"I don't know whether Rolling suffered or not," he said.

Mann said he felt the execution was hardly comparable to the pain that Rolling inflicted.

"When you look at everything the families have been through and the community has been through, in a lot of respects the execution pales in comparison," he said.

Harrison said he was disappointed by Rolling's last statement, hoping his client would apologize to his victims. Instead, he sang a gospel hymn for two minutes.

"Thou art the alpha and omega. The beginning and the end. The sound of thy voice stills a mighty wind. None greater than thee oh Lord. None greater than thee," Rolling sang.

But Rolling did clear up one loose end before he died. Before the execution, he gave a note to his minister confessing to a 1989 triple slaying in Louisiana in which he was suspected but never convicted.

Julie Grissom, 24, her nephew Sean Grissom, 8, and her father Tom Grissom, 55, were found stabbed to death in their Shreveport home, almost a year before Rolling's deadly Gainesville crime spree.

Some of the family members of Rolling's victims had said repeatedly that the execution wouldn't provide closure, because the deaths of their loved ones would affect their lives forever.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

It is a disturbing and sad irony that just after we witnessed the Amish's unquestioning compassion following schoolhouse murders, we saw newspaper images of people rejoicing and celebrating a day of revenge after Danny Rolling's execution.

Did we learn nothing from the Amish?

What lessons are we teaching our children?

Perhaps the difference lies in the one murderer taking his own life and the state having the power to put the other to death.

Regardless of how a murderer dies, an execution should surely be a time of reflection and sorrow.

Like the man who killed the Amish girls, Rolling had a mother.

Would the community ever have gone to her door step with comfort and solace?

This is not a time for the tribal celebration of victory.

Rolling, for all his sickness, was one of us.

It should be a somber act to bring about the end of another human being.

Easy executions like Rolling's leave difficult questions for us to deal with

Michael Mayo, Columnist, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

As I walked through Florida State Prison last week to witness Danny Rolling's execution, a Death Row inmate called me a killer.

"Murderers! All of you are murderers!" came the shout from a window as a dozen media witnesses and six prison officials boarded two vans to take us to the death chamber.

Takes one to know one, I felt like shouting back.

But during the one-minute ride from a prison wing to the death chamber, as we drove past the white hearse that would take Rolling's body off the grounds, I couldn't help but wonder if he had a point.

Across the road, some who came to cheer Rolling's execution held up placards with biblical passages supporting their position. "Whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed Genesis 9:6," said one sign.

So then what about the sixth commandment? Thou shalt not kill.

We kill.

We like to think we kill in the name of justice, not vengeance, with rigid burdens of proof and procedures, but it's killing just the same.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court lifted a suspension of the death penalty in1976, there have been 1,053 executions in the United States, including three last week.

There have been 63 in Florida.

I've seen two executions, of Rolling and Aileen Wuornos, in October 2002.

Witnessing the second was easier than the first, and the first was easier than I imagined.

That bothers me.

It also bothers me that instead of withering away in isolated obscurity, Rolling got a stage at the end. He went down singing, writing his own hymn for the occasion.

You should have seen the way we media witnesses painstakingly reconstructed the lyrics after the execution, trying to get our transcriptions consistent, as if his words were actually important.

A few days later, I still can't get his damn voice out of my head, still can't shake the melodic chorus of, "None greater than Thee, O Lord, none greater than Thee."I

t bothers me that Rolling got to enjoy the sweet, succulent taste of a lobster tail six hours before his death.

I don't know if my solution would be to deny a condemned person a last meal of his choosing, or to force him to eat decades of prison gruel until his heart gave out on his own.

All that's left after these easy executions are the tough questions.

Neither of the killers I saw die had much in the way of redeeming value.

Wuornos admitted to killing seven men.

Rolling admitted to killing five college students in Gainesville and a family of three in Shreveport, La. After doing the things that they did, a person probably should lose all rights and privileges in the human race, including breathing.

But is it society's place to bring that about?

It's an age-old issue. Nothing takes it from the abstract to the concrete like watching the color drain from the face of someone strapped to a gurney, seeing a chest heave one final breath.

The morning after Rolling's execution, I drove to Micanopy, a small town near Gainesville, to talk with Letha Prater. She was in the death chamber to witness Wuornos' execution four years ago. Wuornos killed her younger brother, Troy Burress, 50, in August 1990, the same month Rolling went on his killing spree.

Prater, 68, said she had no regrets about witnessing Wuornos' execution. Even though she admits it "probably was revenge," she said she found her death therapeutic."A cloud lifted off, a cloud just drifted away," said Prater, 68, a former Fort Lauderdale resident who moved to rural Central Florida in 1989.

"I was happy. I felt lighter. It didn't bring [my brother] back, but at least she paid for what she did."She said her brother was her best friend.

Burress, a pool maintenance man, moved from Delray Beach to Ocala in 1990 so he could be close to his sister. "When someone gets taken from you in a violent way, it makes you angry,"Prater said. After the execution she said her heart "wasn't quite as hard. Isent the hatred along with her."

About death penalty opponents, she said, "They say [capital punishment] is not civilized, that it's coming down to [the killers'] level. Well, you could never come down to their level. They massacre people. She shot my brother in the back."

According to Amnesty International, 129 countries have abolished the deathpenalty in law or practice, including most European nations, Canada and Mexico.

In 2005, according to Amnesty International, the countries with the most known judicial executions were China (at least 1,700), Iran (94),Saudia Arabia (86) and the United States (60).

"You wonder if most Americans know the company we're keeping," said MarkElliott of Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, an abolitionistgroup.

Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C., said only about 10 percent of the approximately 3,400death row inmates in the United States will ever be executed."Who gets picked and why is not always clear," said Dieter, whose nonprofit group does not take an overall position on capital punishment but is critical of inconsistencies. "There's an unspoken agreement to have the death penalty, but not use it too much.

"Experts say death-penalty cases usually cost two to three times more than having someone imprisoned for life. "If the public knew what this really cost, they'd turn away from it," Elliott said. That day doesn't seem near.

According to an ABC News poll in July, 65 percent of Americans support the death penalty. A Gallup Poll in May found that 60 percent of Americans think it's applied fairly.They must not follow the news.

Earlier this decade, Illinois put a moratorium on the death penalty and all but emptied Death Row after a spate of exonerations raised serious questions about its use.

According to AmnestyInternational, 123 Death Row inmates in the United States have been released since 1973 after evidence emerged about their innocence. Florida has had the highest number of exonerations, 22.

But there are some cases, like Rolling's, where the death penalty seems fitting.I used to strongly oppose capital punishment. Now I'm more ambivalent.

Maybe it's because I'm now a father of a little girl who turns 1 next month.

As I spent time with the relatives and friends of Rolling's victims the past two weeks, as I heard them describe their agony and saw their faces at the execution, I thought maybe they deserve this small satisfaction, even if itis retribution at its basest.

Tommy Carroll, who needed years of therapy after finding the mutilated and stabbed bodies of his childhood friends Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada in their Gainesville apartment, said, "For someone who maintains their innocence, when there are doubts or no DNA, I could see not having it. But for someone like Rolling, who admits his guilt, my only question is why it has to take so long?"

With Rolling's execution, vindication seemed out of grasp----A lawyer spent 16 years living under a shadow of suspicion.

Among the people standing vigil outside the prison at Danny Rollings execution Wednesday was Hal Carter, an Atlanta lawyer.

Carter hoped Rolling would confess to the murders nearly 17 years ago of Julie, Tom and Sean Grissom in Shreveport, La.

At the time of the killings, Carter was Julie Grissom's fiance.He also became a suspect.

Now, he wanted the suspicion to end.

But at 6:30 p.m., when those outside learned that Rolling had sung a hymn and was then executed, Carter realized his name would continue to be connected to the Shreveport murders.

"I left despondent," he said.

"Neither I nor the Grissom family would ever have the certainty we needed."

When the Grissom murders took place in November 1989, dozens of TV broadcasts and newspapers said the police had named Carter as "the primary suspect."

Shunned, insulted and threatened, he closed down his prosperous Shreveport law practice and moved to Georgia, leaving family and friends.

"Not only was I destroyed over Julie's death, I was also falsely accused,"he said. "Worst of all, the real killer was free to strike again."

Rolling struck 9 months later in Gainesville. After the Gainesville murders, Grissom began his own investigation and discovered uncanny similarities between the 3 Shreveport murders and the 5 Gainesville murders.

Among the similarities: The murderer's rare bloodtype was the same at both crime scenes and the bodies were posed.

On Wednesday, as Carter stood in the field outside Florida State Prison in Starke with death penalty opponents, a sparrow fell from the sky at his feet. He held it through the execution, feeling its beating heart in his hands.

After the execution, he raised his hands in the air and the bird soared toward the sky."I took this as a sign that something good would happen," he said.

This thought was bolstered by a letter he had received from Rolling weeks before. Carter had written Rolling and asked for "the truth about the Grissom murders." Rolling had responded in writing, "You will be vindicated. My word."

But when people standing outside the prison learned that Rolling had said nothing, Carter realized his hopes had been dashed.

Rolling had gone to his death without keeping his word, or so Carter thought.

Until he got a phone call Thursday night.

It was Mike Hudspeth, the Shreveport pastor who had spent Wednesday with Rolling. He said he had asked Rolling to clear Carter's name and shortly before the execution Rolling had handed him a written statement."You'll be very pleased," Hudspeth told Carter.

Police would announce the confession in Shreveport on Friday morning, he said.

In a messy combination of cursive and print on a crumpled piece of paper, Rolling had written, "Hereby, I make a formal, written statement concerning the murder of Julie, Tom and Sean Grissom in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana.

He thanked Hudspeth and told him that the news had not only "changed a very sad day, but also the rest of my life."

Rolling's confession continued: "I and I alone am guilty. It is my hand that took those precious lights out of this old dark world. With all of my heart I wish I could bring them back. Being a native son of Shreveport, I can only offer this confession of deep felt remorse over the loss of such fine outstanding souls."

Back at his suburban Atlanta home, Carter said he spent all of Friday thanking God for this sudden, unexpected turn of events.

"I also thanked Danny," he said. "I know he was a terrible killer, but he kept his word."

Friday, October 27, 2006

SHREVEPORT, La. - Shortly before he was executed in Florida this week, serial killer Danny Rolling handed his spiritual adviser a handwritten confession to a grisly triple murder 17 years ago in his hometown of Shreveport, police said Friday.

Rolling, the son of a Shreveport police officer, was executed Wednesday for killing five college students in Gainesville, Fla., in a ghastly string of slayings in 1990.

In 1997, Rolling sent a detailed confession, including a description of the crime scene, to the woman he had married in prison. She gave it to police, said retired police detectives Don Ashley and Danny Fogger, who had worked on the case.

Still, police said was a relief to have a signed, public confession.

The document was released at a news conference Friday. Most of the text is in cursive, with large, gothic-style capitals at the start of each paragraph.

Sixteen years ago, Danny Rolling killed five UF and SFCC students. He raped some, mutilated others and posed his victims' bodies to heighten the ghoulish effect of his crime scenes. The murders were nightmarish, surreal - in fact, Rolling always seemed more like a B-movie clichUa lunatic drifter out of central casting, than a flesh-and-blood human being.

Today he faces the sharp end of a government needle. Without a last-minute reprieve, he'll be dead by 6:15 p.m.

No one will shed a tear for Rolling - not the Alligator, not the student body and especially not the victims' families. They waited 16 years for this moment, almost the span of their loved ones' short lives, hoping to find some closure. Maybe they will.

But I won't rejoice in Rolling's death. I can't. For all his crimes, all his monstrous indifference to human feeling, he's still a person - a member of our species, whether we like it or not. Tonight, in a small room in Bradford County, armed guards will strap him to a table and kill him.

It's easy to oppose capital punishment when the man with the needle in his arm is an abstraction - a mug shot on the nightly news, a name in the morning paper. But when you see him up close, specifically, when he stops being one of 376 inmates on death row and becomes the one they're executing tonight, you want to push the plunger yourself.

It should be the other way around. But somehow it's not.

And so it is with Rolling. Like all murderers, he has victims, innocent people with families who miss them and want justice. But he's not like the other men in Florida State Prison, not really.

They killed cops, cheating lovers, gas station clerks - sometimes brutally, sometimes in cold blood, but not for kicks, for whimsy. Their offenses are in a different league.

In so many ways, Rolling stands alone, a test case for the death penalty. His guilt is beyond doubt. His crimes are heinous - even now, a decade and a half later, they've lost none of their power to shock and sicken. Worst of all, he shows no signs of genuine remorse. For once, the truism holds up: If anyone deserves a lethal injection, it's Danny Rolling.

But after the doctors pronounce him dead, after the reporters go home and everyone moves on to the next outrage, will we have gained anything by Rolling's execution?

His victims will still be dead. Their families will still face the unfathomable task of living without them. And long after Rolling has faded into anonymity, we'll still know that men like him are made of the same stuff as us - the same blood, the same guts. It's an ugly fact that no syringe can ever change.

We want him to die - I want him to die - because his existence is an obscenity, an affront to our humanity. But killing him won't make us clean again. So tonight, when the state hauls Rolling out of his cage and finishes him off, ask yourself: What is this supposed to accomplish?

TV, radio and print journalists from across the state convened in Raiford, a small town of about 200 people, to gather details about the serial killer's lethal injection.

About 20 big white media vans, their satellites jutting toward the sky, sat parked in a large lot across the street from the execution chamber where Rolling lived his final minutes.

Parts of the parking lot were surrounded by barbed wire. Herds of cows grazed less than 200 yards away.

Kristen Guilfoos, a UF telecommunications junior covering the execution for WRUF-AM, called the press setup a "media affront."

"It's almost ridiculous," she said. "It's like a media circus. I mean, look at all the trucks."

Rory O'Neill, a reporter for the wire service Metro Networks, said no one was on the scene when he first arrived at noon. At the 3 p.m. press conference, he counted 17 cameras and about 50 reporters and camera operators.

Compared to other executions, he said, there was a much greater presence of media and protestors.

"I've never seen a crowd of supporters," said O'Neill. "If you talk to people, they're angry."

Bridget Murphy, a reporter for The Florida Times-Union, said she'd been at the scene since 3 p.m.

"Look at all of these trucks. I haven't seen it like this since Hurricane Charley," she said as she walked briskly to a press conference after Rolling's death. She called the group of TV trucks "satellite city."

Chris Tisch, a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times, walked to the press conference after he witnessed the execution. He was one of the few reporters who had a seat to witness the execution, along with reporters from The Associated Press, The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and several TV stations.

At the press conference, the victims' family members spoke at a lectern topped with a large cluster of news microphones.

Tisch scribbled on a white legal pad and another reporter seated on the ground typed feverishly on her laptop.

Diana Hoyt and Theresa Ann Garren, both barely tall enough to look over the lectern, spoke solemnly to the music of snapping cameras and scribbling pens. When the stepmother and mother of victim Christa Hoyt stopped talking, a cacophony of questions sounded out.

However, some photographers unfortunate enough to be in the back aimed their questions at reporters blocking their view.

Gainesville, FL (AHN) - Convicted serial murderer Danny Rolling cleared his conscience and a Louisiana cold case before he was executed by admitting to killing three people that authorities suspected he had committed.

Shortly before he was executed Rolling slipped his spiritual advisor a handwritten note confessing to a triple murder 17 years ago in Shreveport, La., his hometown.

But earlier in the week the former Shreveport lead investigator on the case told the Gainesville Sun he believed Rolling was responsible.

"I just have no doubt that he's the guy," said Don Ashley, 55, who now is an investigator for the Caddo Parish District Attorney's Office in Louisiana. "The only just punishment for him is him receiving the death penalty."

Rolling did receive the death penalty on Wednesday. In his one-page note he wrote: "I, and I alone am guilty" "It was my hand that took those precious lights out of this ole dark world....with all my heart and soul would I could bring them back."

Rolling, was the son of a Shreveport police officer. His execution on Wednesday was for killing five college students in Gainesville, Florida, in 1990.

(AP) — The text of executed killer Danny Rolling's confession to a triple murder in Shreveport, La., in 1989, the year before he killed five college students in Gainesville, Fla.

Spelling, punctuation and capitalization are Rolling's. Most of the text is in cursive, with large, gothic-style capitals at the start of each paragraph and in the word "By" in the third paragraph. Rolling's first signature, the names and all capitalized matter in the second section, and the entire last section are in print rather than cursive writing.

• Danny RollingIn order to fulfill all things that no stone be unturned. Here by I make a formal written statement concerning the murders of Julie, Tom & SEAN GRISSOM in my hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana ... HAL CARTER, Julie Grissom's former fiancee is 100% INNOCENT — TOTALLY PURE of that crime. I, and I alone am guilty. It was my hand that took those precious lights out of this ole dark world. With all my heart & soul would I could bring them back. Being a native son of Shreveport, I can only offer this confession of deep felt remorse over the loss of such fine — outstanding souls.

Have wept an ocean of tears ... By which mournful doth float 'pon a sea of regret._Danny Rolling

There was a lot of discussion in the boodle this morning (see comments on previous item) about the death penalty. Yesterday Danny Rolling, the serial killer, was executed for the 1990 student slayings in Gainesville. In the end, he left it to his attorney to pass along an apology to the families. He chose to sing a hymn instead.

Back in 1991 I went to Gainesville to report on the aftermath of the murders. At that point the murders were officially unsolved, but Rolling had been named as a suspect. Many Gainesville residents told me they didn't think Rolling could have done it -- he wasn't smart enough. They were expecting a criminal mastermind. They were expecting Dracula.

There's a tendency to imagine these killers as being rather smarter and more gothic, shall we say, than they really are. A lot of this is media-driven, a Hollywood fantasy. We think of a serial killer, we think of Hannibal Lecter. Even Ted Bundy was romanticized (played on TV by Mark Harmon back when he was People's Sexiest Man Alive). Rolling was a two-bit loser, a bit of a bumbler. Homicide doesn't actually require any special genius. There's also a tendency in the media to underplay, or ignore completely -- for whatever reason -- the sexual sadism that almost invariably motivates these killers.

(Note: The headline on this item comes from a book about Death Row in Florida, written by my friend and colleague David von Drehle.)--Actual exchange of messages:

Achenbach: No one will remember me when I'm dead.

Weingarten: Now, now. That's not true. There will be a period of time between your death and funeral when people will remember you. People who have to speak at the funeral, for example.By Joel Achenbach October 26, 2006; 12:51 PM ET

Danny Rolling is dead, but I suspect it's impossible to bury the pain for the families of his five victims.

A handful of them were witness to his execution Wednesday. Perhaps they found a measure of comfort in the sting of a lethal injection coursing through Rolling's veins. Others would argue that a greater punishment would be to allow him to rot away in a small cell, never, ever drawing a breath of air as a free man.

We have yet to define what constitutes moral justice for barbarians such as Rolling.

The death-penalty option offers a disturbing peek into our souls, serving as a litmus test on the concept of forgiveness.The dark side tugs at me whenever I read about the despicable crimes of Rolling and society's other misfits. Rolling stabbed, mutilated, decapitated and posed his victims.

If one of the victims had been close to me, my first reaction would be to beg for 10 minutes alone with Rolling in a room, where I let rage and hatred rush through every vein in my body.

But my conscience always creeps in, warning me that if I succumb to all those emotions, I am no different from the beasts who kill for the sake of sport and visceral satisfaction.

Societal protocol mandates that we allow the government to do our bidding when it comes to justice. In Florida, the ultimate payback is the death penalty. We are one of 38 states that allow executions.

You could argue that a lethal injection is more humane than beating someone to a lifeless pulp, but ultimately, the results are the same. It takes us back to the moral dilemma:

Will finding forgiveness in our hearts bring greater peace than seeing a man die for his sins?

Trying to reconcile the conflict between sin and spirituality is a personal choice. Finding answers becomes harder whenever an execution escalates into the tawdry madness that revolved around Rolling.

Interest in Rolling memorabilia spiked during the past week on the Internet, where various auction sites sell items created by the criminally infamous. On execution day, there was the usual bickering among those who detest the death penalty and those who embrace it wholeheartedly.

My guess is that each group is a minority, with many of us trapped in an emotional middle ground.

"I don't have the answers," said Chuck Seubert, a friend who was a New York City policeman for 16 years. "In some cases, the death penalty can't be given quick enough. In other cases, it's given too quickly.

"Jumping through all the legal hoops delayed justice for 16 years in Rolling's case. He murdered those people in Gainesville in 1990. That is frustratingly absurd.

The cost of executing a prisoner, factoring in appeals and other expenses, is far greater than keeping him or her in a cell for a lifetime. And studies have proved conclusively that the death penalty is not a deterrent.

It leads us to the spectacle of Rolling's final hours. He ate a meal of lobster, shrimp, a baked potato, cheesecake and sweet tea before he was eventually strapped to a gurney with a white sheet covering everything but his face, neck and right arm.

Some may call this closure. Others will tell you it only opens a window into our soul. The view can be conflicting, if not disturbing.

George Diaz can be reached at 407-420-5533 or gdiaz@orlandosentinel.com.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

STARKE - The contrast between the two groups assembled in the field across from Florida State Prison couldn't have been greater.

On one side of a rope line, about 60 people cheered the execution of Gainesville serial killer Danny Rolling. A few people lit cigars at news of his death and waved signs, such as one reading "Finally . . . kill the killer."

On the other side, a slightly larger group prayed and sang hymns in opposition to the death penalty. Near a sign reading "We remember the victims . . . but not with more killing," some wept at word of the execution.

Perhaps none of those assembled embodied the split more than Jim and Matthew Niblack.

Jim, 54, of Gainesville said his 18-year-old son, Matthew, wanted to see the scene outside the execution, so they drove up together. Once they arrived, Jim joined the section of opponents and his son headed the other way.

"There should be no such thing as the death penalty if you don't do it for him," said Matthew, a Williston High School student.

His father said he believed executions drag the state down to the level of a murderer.

"You really doing the same that they've done," he said.The scene outside the prison recalled the 1989 execution of Ted Bundy, which drew a cheering crowd of more than 100 people and throngs of state and national reporters. In more recent executions, dozens of death penalty opponents have gathered but there have generally been just a few, if any, supporters.

Roy Brown, 55, of Tampa is the one regular among supporters. Brown's 7-year-old daughter was murdered, and the man convicted for the crime is on Death Row and now appealing his sentence.

"This is good for me - to see all these people come out here," he said. "If people don't come from Gainesville, they're some sorry dogs."Gainesville resident Bonnie Flassig has attended execution protests for years. She said the attention around Rolling's execution overshadowed the problems with some of the other 61 executions since the death penalty was reinstated in Florida.

"We like to think of Danny Rolling and Ted Bundy as the poster boys of why we need the death penalty," she said. "There are 61 others that I certainly wouldn't call the worst of the worst.

"While family members of Rolling's victims assembled inside the prison, some friends of those victims joined the crowds outside. Tonya Wilson, 34, of Newberry said she was supposed to be the roommate of victims Sonja Larson and Christina Powell during the semester they were killed.

"I'm so glad that this day is here," she said. "Finally we're going to get some kind of justice."Atlanta attorney Hal Carter, 56, said he once dated Julie Grissom, one of Rolling's victims in the Louisiana killings for which he was never prosecuted. Carter said he came to show that someone who was close to a victim could still oppose the death penalty.

"Whether it's by Danny Rolling or the state, it's murder," he said.

Before the execution, some family members were critical about the protesters and news media attention given to Rolling. Chealea Neckler, the 17-year-old niece of victim Christa Hoyt, said seeing protesters was the hardest part of the day.

"I feel like they don't know the story," she said. "They didn't live it."

Mario Taboada, the 45-year-old brother of victim Manuel Taboada, said he hoped the news media would focus on the victims rather than Rolling.

"I don't think he deserves this much attention," he said.He was also critical of an independent horror movie about the murders, "The Gainesville Ripper," which is now being filmed. Director Josh Townsend was in the crowd outside the prison, getting footage he said he will use at the end of the movie.

The former Gainesville resident said he changed the names of the victims and other details out of respect for the victims' families.

"That's the best we could do to be respectful and still tell the story," he said.

Other Gainesville residents who assembled outside the prison said they came to see the conclusion of a story that they experienced firsthand.

Retired University of Florida sports management professor Owen Holyoak, 73, sat in a lawn chair and listened to a radio headset for news about the execution. He said he remembered that students stopped attending his and other classes in fall 1990 because of the fear surrounding the murders. "It just had a profound effect on me when it happened," he said.

Sitting among the execution supporters, he said, "just seemed like the thing to do to try to get some closure."

Matthew Niblack said he was just a small child at the time of the killing, but wanted to attend the protests just the same. But he said his first visit to the field across from Florida State Prison will also be his last."I'm not coming to another one again," he said.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

GAINESVILLE: After spending the last 12 years on death row, convicted killer Danny Rolling was executed Wednesday. He pleaded guilty to murdering five students at the University of Florida 16 years ago. Two Fort Myers residents who attended the University of Florida at the time of the murders were willing to share their stories.

The crime spree left residents of Gainesville, and those around much of the state, in fear for several weeks. Florida Governor Jeb Bush says he regrets it has taken so long for Rolling to be put to death.

"He is the poster child, if you will, of why there should be a death penalty; atrocious crimes committed. It's more than appropriate for him to receive the sentence he received," said Bush.

Many people say that it is hard to comprehend what it would have been like for the thousands of students living in Gainesville at the time of the murders. One Fort Myers couple says that they were around when it all happened and they were willing to share their story.

Though it has been 16 years since the murders took place, former University of Florida students Lee and Stefanie Cutshall say that the memories still haunt them.

"It happened day after day. You were in shock, in a stop mode," said Lee.

The murders happened during the first week of fall classes. At a time when football and fraternity parties were on the minds of most American college students, Lee and Stefanie, and thousands of others in Gainesville, were locking their doors, staying inside, and some left Gainesville all together.

"They said they were all petite brunettes and mom said, 'You are a brunette.' That's when they made the phone call to come home for a while," said Stefanie.

Stefanie left Gainesville, but Lee stayed only to learn about a fourth victim. He says it was someone he knew - the next door neighbor of his best friend.

"He called me and told me they had found his neighbor, it was that girl. That's when you realize how close it is, how personal it is," said Lee.

On Wenesday, the day of Rolling's execution, even though it is 16 years later, the Cutshalls say they sill have no pity for Rolling.

"What he did was cruel and unusual. It was vicious. What they are doing to him, lethal injection, that's too humane," said Stefanie.

Though that chapter of their life will soon have some closure, the Cutshalls say that the bond shared between all University of Florida students will never die.

"People still honor them. It's one of those things that is important to the history of Gainesville," said Stefanie.

STARKE, Fla. -- Danny Rolling was executed Wednesday evening at 6 p.m. for the 1990 murders and mutilations of five college students in Gainesville.

Rolling was strapped on a gurney, placed on a heart monitor and wheeled into the execution chamber late Wednesday afternoon, where the eight carefully marked syringes used in a lethal injection awaited.

The first two syringes contained sodium pentothal, which rendered Rolling unconscious. The third contained a saline solution that was used as a flushing agent. Another two syringes containing pancuronium bromide were then administered to paralyze him. Another syringe of saline solution was administered, and the final two doses of potassium chloride delivered the lethal doses that stopped his heart from beating.

Rolling was declared dead at 6:13 p.m.

Sadie Darnell, who was a spokeswoman for the Gainesville Police Department at the time of the murders, said she believes the process is so humane that it might disturb the families of the victims.

"One of my concerns is that for the family members who do witness that they may be struck and affected by how easy it is, that it's a gentle, mild form of death," she said.

Before the execution, Dianna Hoyt, whose stepdaughter, Christa Hoyt, was one of the victims, said she would rather have seen Rolling get executed by the electric chair like infamous serial killer Ted Bundy did when he was executed in Florida. Lethal injection became the alternative form of execution in 2000.

"I don't understand," said Hoyt, who attended the execution. "When he (Rolling) was convicted, it was the electric chair, and I really felt like it needed to go back to that."

Rolling's last-minute appeal contending that the chemicals used in Florida's execution process could cause severe pain was turned down Wednesday by the U.S. Supreme Court just a half hour before the execution. The court had previously turned down the same arguments in two other Florida executions this fall.

His death would comes 16 years after the five murders set off a week of panic and fear in the college town.His final attempt to stop his death was before the U.S. Supreme Court today.

The appeal claims that the chemicals used in the execution procedure cause severe pain, but the high court has declined to intervene in two other Florida executions where the condemned used similararguments.

Corrections Department spokesman Robby Cunningham said Rolling, 52, was calm and cooperative ahead of the execution.

Before being moved to a cell next to the death chamber at Florida State Prison, Rolling visited with his brother Kevin, and his brother's pastor Jim Wallingworth, Cunningham said.Rolling ate his last meal of lobster tail, butterfly shrimp, baked potato, strawberry cheesecake and sweet tea shortly before noon. "He enjoyed his last meal. He ate every bite," Cunningham said.

The victims' families ran an advertisement Thursday in The Gainesville Sun, thanking the community for its support: "We hope you will remember August 1990 and the years that followed without any sense of community shame for what has happened here. You turned a blemish into a rose."

Crowds were expected outside the prison, with possibly the largest turnout since Ted Bundy's execution.

He was suspected in the deaths and disappearances of 36 women across the country. He was electrocuted Jan. 24, 1989, in the same death chamber where Rolling will die by lethal injection.

In Gainesville, the wounds of the town and the victims' families will live on."I don't think it – Gainesville -- will ever be exactly the same," former Alachua State Attorney Rod Smith, who put Rolling on death row in 1994, said recently.

"There will be a special memory of the terror inflicted."The lives of five young college students were violently cut short by Rolling's rage.

After the largest and costliest manhunt in Florida history, Rolling -- a man previously considered a common criminal -- would be exposed as one of the nation's most notorious serial killers.Rolling would be the 63rd inmate to be put to death since Florida resumed executions in 1979 and the third this year.

He would be the 259th since 1924, when the state took over the duty from individual counties.--

STARKE, Fla. -- Danny Harold Rolling, the state's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy, ate his last meal and met with his brother and spiritual adviser as he prepared to be executed Wednesday for the grisly hunting-knife slayings of five college students in 1990.

Rolling, 52, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 6 p.m. Wednesday for the murders that threw the University of Florida into a panic as fall semester began in August 1990. Several victims' relatives plan to be in the execution chamber at Florida State Prison to watch.

Rolling was calm and cooperative ahead of the execution, Corrections Department spokesman Robby Cunningham said. He spent several hours Wednesday with his brother Kevin, and his brother's pastor Jim Wallingworth, officials said.

He was later moved to a cell a few feet from the death chamber, Cunningham told about 100 journalists outside the prison. Warden Randall Bryant was scheduled to read the death warrant listing Rolling's crimes and the reasons for his execution. Then Rolling would get a shower and a new suit and white dress shirt.

His final appeal was before the U.S. Supreme Court, where he was challenging the constitutionality of the chemicals used in Florida's execution procedure. But the high court has declined to intervene in two other Florida executions in which death row inmates used similar arguments.

The horror of Rolling's killings began when police officers found the bodies of the victims over a three-day period, one decapitated and posed, others mutilated and several sexually assaulted.

The spree touched off a massive manhunt, causing students to cower in fear and purchase weapons. Rolling was jailed for a supermarket robbery when investigators used DNA to link him to the killings months later.

Rolling pleaded guilty to the slayings in 1994, shocking the courtroom on the first day of his trial. "There are some things you just can't run from, this being one of those," Rolling told Circuit Judge Stan R. Morris, who accepted the pleas and found him guilty and later sentenced him to death.

He later told The Associated Press: "I do deserve to die, but do I want to die? No. I want to live. Life is difficult to give up."

The looming execution has reopened old wounds for some of the victims' families, including Dianna Hoyt, the stepmother of victim Christa Hoyt. She plans to be in the execution chamber.

"It is very hard for us to see someone else die," she said. "But, he deserves it."

Ricky Paules, the mother of Tracy Paules, will be joined by another daughter to watch: "If you see us crying, it is not for Rolling, but for Tracy."

The victims' families ran an advertisement Thursday in The Gainesville Sun, thanking the community for its support: "We hope you will remember August 1990 and the years that followed without any sense of community shame for what has happened here. You turned a blemish into a rose."Rolling ate his last meal of lobster tail, butterfly shrimp, baked potato, strawberry cheesecake and sweet tea shortly before noon.

"He enjoyed his last meal. He ate every bite," Cunningham said.

Crowds of death penalty opponents and supporters were expected outside the prison, with possibly the largest turnout since Bundy's execution. He was suspected in the deaths and disappearances of 36 women across the country. He was electrocuted Jan. 24, 1989, in the same death chamber where Rolling will die.

That case was still fresh in the minds of many when Rolling's killings began the next year in roughly the same area as some of Bundy's.

The bodies of Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were found stabbed to death on a Sunday afternoon in 1990, in a town house just off the University of Florida campus. Hoyt, 18, whose decapitated head was left on a bookshelf, was found the next morning in her isolated duplex; and Paules and Manny Taboada, both 23, were discovered dead a day later at Gatorwood Apartments.

For months, a large task force of local, state and federal agents followed hundreds of leads and took blood samples from dozens of men. They did not know that Rolling was already behind bars in Marion County after robbing a grocery store.

Then authorities in Rolling's hometown of Shreveport, La., investigating a triple slaying that they believe he committed, suggested that police should check out the drifter and ex-con. The DNA left at the crime scenes in Gainesville matched genetic material police recovered from Rolling during some dental work.

Throughout the years, Rolling has insisted he was not as atrocious as many thought.

In a letter to the AP in 2002, Rolling wrote, "I assure you I am not a salivating ogre. Granted ... time's past; the dark era of long ago _ Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde did strike up and down the corridors of insanety."

Rolling, who often drew dark and sexual pictures, claimed he had good and bad multiple personalities. He blamed the murders on abuse he suffered as a child from his police officer father and his treatment in prison. He said he killed one person for every year he was behind bars.

He served a total of eight years in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi before the killings.

In his trips through north central Florida courts, Rolling twice sang gospel songs when he was sentenced. A tape of his own songs was found by investigators at a campsite in Gainesville where he stayed while committing the killings.

Rolling would be the 63rd inmate to be put to death since Florida resumed executions in 1979 and the third this year. He would be the 259th since 1924, when the state took over the duty from individual counties.

STARKE, Fla. - As serial killer Danny Rolling awaited execution Wednesday, the scene outside the Florida State Prison was eerily familiar to the evening more than 17 years ago when serial killer Ted Bundy died in Florida's electric chair.

More than 100 protesters gathered near dozens of death penalty supporters, curious onlookers and journalists on the barren cow pasture across from the prison where Rolling, 52, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection. Rolling was convicted of the 1990 hunting-knife slayings of five college students.

"They're doing a good thing," said Randy Hicks, a 35-year-old Lake Butler truck driver and former prison guard who occasionally watched over Rolling. "This guy deserves it. It's very overdue."

Death penalty opponents, who were cordoned off in a separate area by police tape, said the execution only served to provide Rolling additional attention. One group briefly held hands in a circle and sang quietly.

"The state of Florida is giving this psychopathic killer just what he wanted," said Mark Elliott of Clearwater, spokesman for Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty. "He will now enjoy celebrity status courtesy of a high profile state execution. Lock him up, throw away the key and let him die alone and unremembered."

Rolling terrorized the north central Florida town of Gainesville when he mutilated and murdered the college students - just 19 months after Bundy's execution in January of 1989.

Bundy, suspected in the deaths and disappearances of 36 women, was electrocuted in the same death chamber where Rolling will die.

Police ended a massive manhunt in the case after they discovered that DNA from Rolling, already jailed for a supermarket robbery, linked him to the killings.

Rolling pleaded guilty to the slayings in 1994, shocking the courtroom on the first day of his trial.

In a 2000 letter to The Associated Press, Rolling recalled the years he served in prison in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi before coming to Florida.

"A mangy dog gets more consideration than what I received," he wrote.

But Rolling added: "Any complaint I may have pales in comparison to the terrible wrong I inflicted upon good people. I stand in the shadow of their suffering. If it is to be mercy, then I shall be eternally grateful. If it to be the wrath of vengeance, then God grant me the strength to face what I must."http://www.bradenton.com/mld/bradenton/15847159.htm

Oh GoddessThere is great sadnessA cherished one has goneEmptyness engulfs usLoss languishes withinHelp us bear this griefAccompany their spiritComfort we who grieveLet us rejoice in their lifeMay their essence be recordedIn the Great Book of ShadowsRenew our rememberance with joy

He’ll be the third inmate to die in 35 days, but that pace likely won’t continue.

By CHRIS TISCH, Times Staff WriterPublished October 24, 2006STARKE — Florida’s death chamber likely will claim its most infamous killer since Ted Bundy this evening with the execution of Danny Rolling, who murdered five Gainesville students 16 years ago.

Rolling’s death will cap a tumultuous two years for Florida’s death penalty, which has endured criticism from lawyers, politicians and the Florida Supreme Court. It was stalled for much of this year while a condemned inmate took an appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.After an 18-month hiatus, the state resumed executions this fall and Rolling will be the third inmate to die in five weeks. Not since four inmates were executed within nine days in 1998 has the state’s death penalty moved with such speed.

But will that pace continue? Will the state begin to effectively empty a death row that has swelled to 376 people while averaging less than three executions per year over the last decade?

The short answer: probably not.

“We always get these little flurries,” said Carolyn Snurkowski, a longtime death penalty lawyer for the state Attorney General’s Office.

“And (people say) it’s always the end of the death penalty or the beginning of a ton of (executions) going through. And I’ve never seen either of those things happen.”

Danny Rolling has spent 12 years on death row, about average for the 61 people executed in Florida.

Rolling raped, mutilated and posed some of the five victims he killed in Gainesville in 1990.He later was arrested for robbing an Ocala supermarket. Police learned he was a suspect in a similar murder in Louisiana, then matched his DNA to the Gainesville crime scenes.Rolling pleaded guilty to the murders, after which a jury unanimously voted for execution. Rolling did not have much grounds to appeal.

Still, even the thinnest of death row appeals take years. The cases are automatically reviewed by the Florida Supreme Court, and the condemned are afforded appeals to the federal courts as well.

While death penalty supporters have tried to limit these appeals, opponents point to one statistic to reinforce their importance: Twenty-two Florida death row inmates have been exonerated during the appeals process. That’s more than any other state.

Rolling’s appellate lawyer, Baya Harrison III, tried to follow the path of two other inmates who won stays this year because of issues surrounding lethal injection. But once those issues were resolved, both those inmates, Clarence Hill and Arthur Rutherford, were executed.Harrison acknowledged Rolling has little fight left and likely will die tonight. He said Rolling not only has accepted that, but believes he deserves it.

Said Harrison: “He told me, 'I have kind of a relationship with my maker. But I don’t think even a merciful God is going to cut me some slack.’”

Rolling’s will be the most celebrated execution in years, but even the most high-profile executions can’t cure the death penalty’s ills.

The problem, many legal experts say, is that Florida’s death penalty law simply scoops up too many people, clogging the system.

For every Rolling, there are dozens of other killers who committed crimes that, though atrocious, don’t require the ultimate punishment, said Michael Mello, a University of Vermont law professor who worked as an appellate lawyer for Ted Bundy.

“We have this system in the first place because we want to kill the Bundys and kill the Danny Rollings,” he said.

“But lo and behold, we end up killing others.”

Unlike each of the other 37 states with the death penalty, Florida juries aren’t required to unanimously agree. Only a majority is required to vote for death.

In an opinion last year, the Florida Supreme Court urged lawmakers to change death penalty law so that only unanimous juries can sentence someone to death. Lawmakers didn’t listen.This year, the American Bar Association issued a report that criticized Florida’s death penalty on many fronts, including the unanimous jury issue.

“The (Rolling) execution should not dissipate concerns over the major flaws in the system,” said Christopher Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor who led the team that issued the ABA report. “This is just a blip on the screen. It’s going to continue as business as usual with very few executions, partly because … there are legitimate concerns about who deserves to be put to death.”

Gov. Jeb Bush hasn’t signed any death warrants beyond Rolling’s, though he said Tuesday that he is reviewing a couple of other cases to see whether all the appeals have been exhausted, making them ready for execution.

If Rolling is executed tonight, his will be the 20th execution under Bush’s watch. That’s almost a third of the 62 executions since the state reinstalled the death penalty in 1979.

But a number of inmates gave up their appeals during the Bush administration and were executed voluntarily. In fact, six of the last 11 people executed in the state were volunteers.For those who did not go voluntarily, the process often proves long and arduous. Bush blames the courts.

“I think the judiciary … in general have been slow to handle their part of this,” he said.

But defense lawyers say the system’s flaws — and lawmakers’ unwillingness to fix them — give them ammunition to muster their appeals.

“The problem isn’t lawyers throwing monkey wrenches, the problem is the death penalty itself,” said Martin McClain, who has represented more than 100 death row inmates. “The death penalty is a government program. And like any government program, reliability is an issue.”

Robert Batey, a professor at the Stetson University College of Law, said a number of issues — be it lethal injection protocol or the unanimous jury issue — will continue to slow the process down.“I would never predict that anything with regard to the death penalty is going to be smooth,” Batey said.

“Undoubtedly, there will be other issues that come up.”

Times research staff contributed to this report.Chris Tisch can be reached at tisch@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2359.

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Danny Harold Rolling, the state's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy, was "remarkably calm" as he awaited his execution for the grisly 1990 slayings of five college students in Gainesville, his attorney said Tuesday.

Rolling's lawyers filed papers with the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a stay of execution. The Florida attorney general asked the court to reject Rolling's application.

Rolling, 52, of Shreveport, La., is scheduled to die at 6 p.m. Wednesday for a reign of terror that paralyzed Gainesville as the University of Florida's fall semester was beginning.

"He was remarkably calm. He is a lot calmer than his lawyers are," said Baya Harrison, his appeals lawyer. He said Rolling told him: "I don't want to die, but it looks like I'm going to die."

His execution is reopening old wounds for some of the victims' families. Several relatives plan to watch the execution at Florida State Prison in Starke, including Diana Hoyt, the stepmother of Christa Hoyt, 18.

"This is a tough thing, but is a necessary thing to go through," she said. "This is the final thing we can do for Christa and for my late husband and her dad, Gary."

"It is very hard for us to see someone else die," she said. "But, he deserves it.

"Ricky Paules, the mother of 23-year-old victim Tracy Paules, will be joined by another daughter: "If you see us crying, it is not for Rolling, but for Tracy."

The students' bodies, some mutilated, posed and sexually assaulted, were found over a three-day period in August and September 1990. The killing spree touched off a massive manhunt, causing students to cower in fear and purchase weapons as the killer remained unidentified.

Rolling was jailed for a supermarket robbery when investigators used DNA to link him to the killings months later.

When he was finally scheduled to go on trial in 1994, he shocked the courtroom by pleading guilty to the five slayings."There are some things you just can't run from, this being one of those," Rolling told Circuit Judge Stan R. Morris, who accepted the pleas and found him guilty.

Rolling's remaining appeal contends that the chemicals used in Florida's execution process can cause severe pain. It is before the U.S. Supreme Court, which has turned down the same arguments in two other Florida executions this fall.

Harrison does not believe he will be able to halt the execution.

"It's tough, we are down to the last effort," Harrison said. "I'm not hopeful, to tell you the truth."

Crowds are expected outside the prison Wednesday, with possibly the largest turnout since Bundy's execution. He was suspected in the deaths and disappearances of 36 women across the country. He was electrocuted Jan. 24, 1989, in the same death chamber where Rolling will die by lethal injection.

That case was still fresh in the minds of many when Rolling's killings began the next year in roughly the same area as some of Bundy's.

Sonja Larson, 18, and Christina Powell, 17, were stabbed to death on a Sunday afternoon in 1990, in a townhouse just off the University of Florida campus. Christa Hoyt, who had been decapitated, was found the next morning in her isolated duplex; and Tracy Paules and Manny Taboada, 23, were discovered dead a day later at Gatorwood Apartments.

Authorities in Rolling's hometown of Shreveport, La., investigating a triple slaying that they believe he committed later suggested to a task force that it should check out the drifter and ex-con. The DNA left at the crime scenes in Gainesville matched genetic material police recovered from Rolling during some dental work.

Throughout the years, Rolling has insisted he was not as atrocious as many thought.

In a letter to The Associated Press in 2002, Rolling wrote, "I assure you I am not a salivating ogre. Granted ... time's past; the dark era of long ago - Dr. Jeckle & Mr. Hyde did strike up & down the corridors of insanety."

Rolling claimed he had good and bad multiple personalities. He blamed the murders on abuse he suffered as a child from his police officer father and his treatment in prison. He said he killed one person for every year he was behind bars. He served a total of eight years in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi before the killings.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- An Orlando man's sister was one of five people killed in the Gainesville murders. Channel 9 talked to her brother Tuesday, the day before Danny Rolling is set to be executed.

The man who murdered five University of Florida students will be executed Wednesday. Jim Larson, the brother of one of Danny Rolling's victims, said his death is long overdue.

The families of all five students are meeting in Gainesville on Wednesday for lunch together. Then they'll make the trip to Florida state prison at Starke.

Together, the Larsons are getting through it. Their family has been shattered in the most heart-wrenching, nightmarish way. They live with mental pictures that most of us cannot comprehend. They black them out by looking at photographs of wonderful memories.

Jim Larson is not looking forward to what he'll see Wednesday, but he'll be there for his sister and for his mother.

"I don't think it's gonna do anything for me, to be honest with you. It might put one more ugly picture in my head. I don't think it's gonna help," he said.

Sonja Larson was only 18 when she was brutally murdered. Because of her love of children, she was planning to become a teacher through her studies at the University of Florida. Before her first class, she and her roommate were found dead in their apartment, not just murdered, but bound, gagged, raped and mutilated.

"Maybe when I get on the other side of this, something will change in me. But I don't imagine so. I think that the images are there and it's just something I have to deal with now," Larson said. "I miss my sister."

Larson went on with his wedding four months after his sister's murder.

"She was supposed to be in the wedding. There was a spot for her there we left open," he said. "I remember the honeymoon being good. I don't think I thought about it too much, but it was there, I'm sure."

Several years later, his wife Carla was kidnapped and murdered. He said he doesn't cry much these days. His daughter Jessica keeps him going, day to day, helping him take care of things when he can't manage.

"I'll be happy when this is all over, when all the families can pick up the pieces and move on," he said.

But Larson will probably be faced with it all over again some day if his wife's killer, death row inmate John Huggins, is ever put to death. Larson said, depending on how it goes Wednesday, he might just stay home next time.

Rolling, the state's most notorious serial killer since Ted Bundy, awaits his execution for the 1990 slayings of five college students in Gainesville. The students' bodies, some mutilated, posed and sexually assaulted, were found over a three-day period in August and September 1990.

Rolling was jailed for a supermarket robbery when investigators used DNA to link him to the killings months later. When he was finally scheduled to go on trial in 1994, he pleaded guilty to the five slayings.

Convicted killer Danny Rolling is reported to be calm less than 24 hours from his execution for the 1990 murders of five college students.

Rolling is scheduled to die tomorrow night at 6, at the Florida State Prison in Starke.

"I don’t want to die, but it looks like I’m going to die," Rolling said to his attorney.

Rolling has a last appeal pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. He contends the chemicals used in Florida’s execution process cause severe pain.

He apparently spared his victims no pain. Some of the students he is accused of killing were mutilated, posed and sexually assaulted. He was linked to the serial killings after a supermarket robbery. Detectives used D-N-A to charge him in the murders months later.

In the next 24 hours, the prison will serve Rolling the final meal he requests.

Procedure calls for a visit from the warden and chaplain, who remain on site until after the execution. Five witnesses will attend the execution, among them Sarasota anchorwoman Linda Carson, the mother of CBS47 and FOX30 reporter Cathi Carson. Rolling has written letters to Mrs. Carson and she has covered his appeals cases for many years.

In Gainesville, U.F. students remember Rolling’s victims. A memorial to all five of those he killed still stands.

Monday, October 23, 2006

Last month, the families of five slain college students got the news - convicted killer Danny Rolling's death warrant had been signed.

Some had sat through Rolling's sentencing 12 years ago, listening to the gruesome details of their loved ones' final moments. Year after year they politely and repeatedly answered questions from friends, the curious and the media, about the case, their relatives and Rolling's appeals even while trying to avoid speaking of him or saying his name. And, throughout it all, they wondered when and, sometimes, if the legal process that seemed to drag on and on would ever end.

Yet, while they say it is time, Rolling's pending execution at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Florida State Prison has brought even more emotion and another painful obstacle for the families to overcome.

"I'm at the beginning almost again where I could just start crying at the drop of a hat," said Dianna Hoyt, 62, Christa Hoyt's stepmother.

Officers found the body of the 18-year-old Newberry High School graduate at her Gainesville apartment on Aug. 27, 1990. Rolling had broken into her home and lain in wait for her to return.

In 1994, Rolling pleaded guilty to killing Christa Hoyt and four other Gainesville college students - Sonja Larson, 18, of Deerfield Beach, Christina Powell, 17, of Jacksonville, Manuel "Manny" Taboada, 23, of Carol City, and Tracy Paules, 23, of Miami - in August 1990.

Louisiana authorities also say Rolling was their only suspect in the 1989 stabbing deaths of three Shreveport residents, Julie Grissom, 24, her nephew Sean Grissom, 8, and her father, Tom Grissom, 55.

"There's nothing that is ever going to bring closure to it. Nothing will ever make me get over Christa's death," Dianna Hoyt said. "I guess I just want it to be over with and then just try to start all over again."

She said she doesn't hate Rolling, and angry doesn't capture her feelings either. "It's that he did a wrong. The other thing is it is the law of the land," she explained about Rolling's execution.

Carrying out his death sentence will give Dianna Hoyt one thing.

"It brings a peace of mind that he can no longer visualize these monstrous works and think about them again and get any type of joy or satisfaction out of them," she said. "I think of his mind as a videotape and it needs to be burned. It just needs to be destroyed."

While Rolling's life has continued in prison, he has outlived relatives of the students he killed.

Christa Hoyt's father, Gary Hoyt, died in 2000 at the age of 63. Jim Larson, Sonja Larson's father, died of colon cancer in 1996 when he was 67.

His wife, Ada Larson, 68, believes the stress and sorrow over their daughter's death hastened her husband's demise.

At first, Ada Larson said she didn't want to attend Rolling's execution. But now she thinks she should "see it through," for her daughter. "I'm certainly not joyful or anything. I thought it's about time. It's past time," she said.

She just wishes her husband could have been there with her.

All of the families of Rolling's victims plan to have relatives at the prison when he is executed. Some have traveled from out-of-state. Some will be witnesses. Prison officials also have said that others, relatives who do not want to watch the execution but want to be at the prison, will be provided with an area where they can gather and be together.

The unusually high number of relatives of Rolling's victims who want to witness the execution has posed a problem for the prison system.

A corrections spokeswoman last week said that the prison system is working to accommodate all of the families, including relatives in the Louisiana case, as they would do at any execution. She would not provide details about how many or who are listed as witnesses.

But some relatives said they have been told each family could only have a limited number of witnesses. One area law enforcement source also said he was told that extra seats may be added.

A list of witnesses, among them victims' family members, government and legal representatives and media, is set before each execution. At most recent executions, there were more seats than witnesses in the room.

Tracy Paules' sister Laurie Lahey, 42, said she plans to witness the execution.

"I'm not looking forward to it. I have to do it for my sister. It's the last thing I can do for her," Lahey said. There won't be closure. But, she said, "Justice will be served. We don't have to know that he's around anymore."

Lahey said there won't be the paperwork the families have received every time there's a new development in the case or another Rolling appeal. "The annoyance of him will be gone too," she said.

One member of the families who has regularly spoken about the case won't witness the execution. Mario Taboada, 45, Manuel Taboada's brother, said he will come to Gainesville this week but others from his family will be witnesses.

"I asked myself the question, 'Would any good come from me witnessing the execution,' and I really could not come up with an answer," he said.

He also said he doesn't want to hear what Rolling has to say in his final statement.An inmate set for execution is allowed to make a final statement in the execution chamber in front of prison officials and witnesses before the death sentence is carried out.

"I don't want to subject myself to any cynicism or sarcastic remarks that he may make," Mario Taboada said. "Sometimes the best way to get back at somebody is to ignore them."

Danny Harold Rolling, who is under a pending death warrant with his executionscheduled for October 25, 2006, has filed a Petition Seeking to Invoke the Court's AllWrits Jurisdiction.

We recently addressed the same claim now asserted by Rolling inRutherford v. Crist, Case No. SC06-2023 and denied relief. We find no basis fordistinguishing our decision in Rutherford, and accordingly, Rolling's petition is herebydenied. No motion for rehearing will be allowed.

PER CURIAM.Danny Harold Rolling, a prisoner under sentence of death and an activedeath warrant, appeals the circuit court’s order denying without an evidentiaryhearing his successive motion for postconviction relief. We have jurisdiction. Seeart. V, § 3(b)(1), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the circuitcourt’s order.

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The execution of Danny Harold Rolling is set for October 25, 2006. Thefactual background and procedural history of this case are detailed in this Court’sopinion on Rolling’s direct appeal. See Rolling v. State, 695 So. 2d 278, 281-83- 2 -(Fla. 1997). After initially pleading not guilty, on February 15, 1994, the dayRolling’s trial was scheduled to begin, he pled guilty to five counts of first-degreemurder, three counts of sexual battery, and three counts of armed burglary of adwelling with a battery. Id. at 282. “A penalty phase proceeding was held, and thejury recommended that Rolling be sentenced to death for each murder by a vote oftwelve to zero. The trial court followed the jury’s advisory recommendation andsentenced Rolling to death for each homicide . . . .” Id.

This Court affirmedRolling’s sentences of death,1 id. at 278, and the United States Supreme Courtdenied his petition for writ of certiorari. Rolling v. Florida, 522 U.S. 984 (1997).Rolling first filed a Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.850 motion forpostconviction relief in November 1998, and filed an amended motion in April

1. On direct appeal, Rolling raised the following six claims of error: (1) thetrial court abused its discretion in denying his motion for a change of venue andthereby violated his Sixth Amendment right to be fairly tried by an impartial jurybecause pervasive and prejudicial pretrial publicity so infected the Gainesville andAlachua County community that seating an impartial jury there was patentlyimpossible; (2) the trial court erred in denying Rolling’s motion to suppress hisstatements which were obtained in violation of his Sixth Amendment right tocounsel; (3) the trial court erred in denying Rolling’s motion to sever and conductthree separate sentencing proceedings; (4) the trial court erred in denying Rolling’smotion to suppress physical evidence seized from his tent because the warrantlesssearch and seizure violated his reasonable expectation of privacy under the FourthAmendment; (5) the trial court erred in finding as an aggravating circumstance thatthe homicide of Sonya Larson was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; andfinally (6) the trial court erred by giving an invalid and unconstitutional juryinstruction on the heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance.- 3 -1999, raising two claims.2 After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the trial courtdenied relief, and this Court affirmed. Rolling v. State, 825 So. 2d 293, 294 (Fla.2002).

On September 22, 2006, Governor Jeb Bush signed a death warrantauthorizing Rolling’s execution. In response to the signing of the death warrant,Rolling filed his second 3.851 motion on October 4, 2006, which raised fourclaims.3 The State filed a response on October 6, 2006. On October 9, 2006, the2. The claims were as follows: (1) ineffectiveness of trial counsel regardingchange of venue, and (2) ineffectiveness of trial counsel for failing to challengethree particular jurors during voir dire.

3. The claims were as follows: (1) access to the files and records pertainingto Rolling’s case in the possession of certain state agencies has been withheld inviolation of chapter 119, Florida Statutes, the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendmentsto the United States Constitution, and articles 1, 9, and 17 of the FloridaConstitution; (2) the existing procedure that the State of Florida utilizes for lethalinjection violates the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as itconstitutes cruel and unusual punishment; (3) the administration of pancuroniumbromide violates Rolling’s First Amendment right to free speech; and (4) newlydiscovered empirical evidence demonstrates that Rolling’s conviction and sentence- 4 -trial court entered its order summarily denying all claims raised in the successivemotion. This appeal follows.

LETHAL INJECTIONRolling first argues that the trial court erred in denying Rolling’s claim thatFlorida’s method of execution by lethal injection violates Rolling’s right to be freeof cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments ofthe United States Constitution, and his right to free speech as guaranteed by theFirst Amendment. Rolling also argues that the trial court erred in denyingRolling’s motion to obtain public records from the Florida Department ofCorrections and the Medical Examiner for the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Floridapertaining to autopsy and toxicology reports of persons executed in Florida bylethal injection and protocols used in the lethal injection process.

In his first claim, Rolling argues that a research letter published in April2005 in The Lancet presents new scientific evidence that Florida’s procedure forcarrying out lethal injection may subject the inmate to unnecessary pain. SeeLeonidas G. Koniaris et al., Inadequate Anaesthesia in Lethal Injection forExecution, 365 Lancet 1412 (2005). He supports this claim with an affidavit fromone of the study’s authors, Dr. David A. Lubarsky, asserting that Florida’sprocedure is substantially similar to the procedures used in the other statesevaluated in the study. Rolling ultimately asserts that the information in this studyis new information not previously available to this Court when it decided Sims v.State, 754 So. 2d 657 (Fla. 2000).

The trial court summarily denied this claim and found that Rolling was notentitled to an evidentiary hearing on whether lethal injection, as administered inFlorida, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, stating that this Courtdetermined in Sims, that lethal injection as administered by the Department ofCorrections did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment. In Hill v. State, 921- 6 -So. 2d 579 (Fla.), cert. denied, 126 S. Ct. 1441 (2006), this Court addressed thesame claim now asserted by Rolling and upheld the trial court’s summary denial ofthe claim. We again rejected such a claim in Rutherford v. State, 926 So. 2d at1113-14. As in those cases, we affirm the trial court’s summary denial of thisclaim in Rolling’s case.

First Amendment Claim

Rolling next asserts that the circuit court erred in denying an evidentiaryhearing on his claim that the administration of pancuronium bromide violates hisfree speech rights as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the United StatesConstitution. Specifically, Rolling contends that the administration ofpancuronium bromide, which paralyzes the muscles, violates his right to freespeech because it renders him unable to communicate any feeling of pain that mayresult if the execution procedure is carried out improperly. Thus, Rolling’s claimis inextricably intertwined with his claim that there is a possibility that the firstchemical, sodium pentothal, will not be administered properly, leaving him whollyor partially conscious.

The circuit court summarily denied this claim. In Rutherford, this Courtaddressed the same claim and found that, because the defendant could notdemonstrate that the chemicals involved in lethal injection would be administeredimproperly in his case, the defendant was not entitled to relief on this claim. 926- 7 -So. 2d at 1114-15. Therefore, as in Rutherford, we find Rolling’s identical FirstAmendment claim to be without merit and find no error in the trial court’s denialapplying our decision in Rutherford.

Public Records Claim

Rolling next argues that the circuit court erred in denying an evidentiaryhearing on his claims arising from his public records requests. On September 28,2006, Rolling filed a motion for production of additional public records to theFlorida Medical Examiner’s Office of the Eighth Circuit of Florida and theDepartment of Corrections, and a motion for serological samples and forindependent testing to the trial court.

Rolling requested autopsy reports andtoxicology studies performed on the sixteen individuals executed by lethalinjection from 2000 to 2005 and all documents related to the Department ofCorrections’ administration of lethal injection and Rolling’s own medical records.He also requested to have independent testing of post-execution blood samples ofArthur Rutherford, scheduled for execution on October 18, 2006. The State filedresponses opposing each of these requests.

On October 4, 2006, the trial courtentered an order denying Rolling’s motion for production of additional publicrecords and motion for serological samples and for independent testing becauseRolling had served this public records request six days after Governor Bush signedRolling’s death warrant on September 22, 2006. The trial court stated that Rolling- 8 -was entitled to his own medical records as long as he complies with Department ofCorrections regulations. Rolling then argued that the withholding of public recordsviolates chapter 119, Florida Statutes, the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments tothe United States Constitution, and article I, sections 9 and 17 of the FloridaConstitution. The circuit court denied this claim.

Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.852(h)(3) applies to cases in which amandate was issued prior to the effective date of the rule. The effective date of therule was October 1, 1998, and this Court affirmed Rolling’s conviction and deathsentence on March 20, 1997.

The rule states:Within 10 days of the signing of a defendant’s death warrant,collateral counsel may request in writing the production of publicrecords from a person or agency from which collateral counsel haspreviously requested public records. A person or agency shall copy,index, and deliver to the repository any public record:(A) that was not previously the subject of an objection;(B) that was received or produced since the previous request; or(C) that was, for any reason, not produced previously.Fla. R. Crim. P. 3.852(h)(3) (emphasis added).

Because there is no evidence in therecord that Rolling has ever requested records from the Medical Examiner’s Officeor the Department of Corrections before his September 28, 2006 request, we findthat the trial court was correct in denying this claim without an evidentiary hearing.See also Rutherford, 926 So. 2d at 1115-17 (denying the substantially same recordsrequest because the defendant failed to demonstrate that he had previously- 9 -requested records concerning lethal injection in Florida, and reasoning that rule3.852(h)(3) “is designed to allow an update of records previously requested”).

THE ABA REPORT

Rolling asserted a claim in the trial court that the American Bar Associationreport entitled Evaluating Fairness and Accuracy in the State Death PenaltySystem: The Florida Death Penalty Assessment Report, published September 17,2006, constitutes newly discovered evidence proving that imposition of the deathpenalty is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment ofthe United States Constitution. The trial court denied this claim.

We recentlyaddressed this issue in Rutherford v. State, Nos. SC06-1931 & SC06-1946 (Fla.Oct. 12, 2006), wherein we concluded that the ABA Report is not newlydiscovered evidence because it “is a compilation of previously availableinformation related to Florida’s death penalty system and consists of legal analysisand recommendations for reform, many of which are directed to the executive andlegislative branches.” Id., slip op. at 10. We also held that nothing in the reportwould cause this Court to recede from its past decisions upholding the facialconstitutionality of the death penalty, and that the defendant did not allege how anyof the conclusions in the report would render his individual death sentenceunconstitutional. Id., slip op. at 11.

For these same reasons, we affirm the circuitcourt’s summary denial of Rolling’s claim.- 10 -

CONCLUSION

For the reasons explained above, we affirm the circuit court’s order denyingRolling’s successive motion for postconviction relief. No motion for rehearingwill be entertained.

Appellee. Defendant under Death Warrant,____________________________/ Execution Set For 10/25/06.

INITIAL BRIEF OF APPELLANT__________________________________________________________________On appeal from a Final Order of the Circuit Court of the Eighth Judicial Circuit, inand for Alachua County, Florida, rendered on October 9, 2006, denying Rolling’ssuccessor post conviction motion to vacate his death sentences filed per theprovisions of Florida Rule of Criminal Procedure 3.851, and from an October 4,2006 Order denying his request for Public Records.__________________________________________________________________Baya Harrison, Esq.Counsel for Appellant

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Newer residents would not recognize the Gainesville of fall 1990, when five college students were brutally slain in their homes and life in the city turned into a horror story overnight.Women - and men - were too afraid to walk alone after dark, certain they could fall prey to the killer.

A helicopter routinely buzzed overhead, shining a wary, watchful spotlight across the University of Florida campus. College students who had scrambled to find their own dorm room or apartment before classes started sought safety in groups, taking shifts sleeping and keeping guard over bolted doors and locked windows.

And everyone lived in fear, worried each time police sirens wailed that a murderer had struck again.There was an evil in the college town's midst.

And Gainesville had suddenly learned no place, no matter how quiet or out-of-the-way, is absolutely safe.For those who lived here at the time, it was a painful, depressing lesson and one that for some has been resurrected by convicted killer Danny Rolling's scheduled execution at Florida State Prison north of Starke Wednesday at 6 p.m.

"The week prior to the murders, things were on the up note around town. There was a brand new president at UF. There was a brand new football coach. I saw that up note turn into a grip of fear," said Spencer Mann, an investigator and spokesman for the 8th Judicial Circuit State Attorney's Office in Gainesville.Sixteen years ago, Mann was working at the Alachua County Sheriff's Office when officers began making the grisly discoveries.

Each day headlines reported another body had been found, another suspect had been named, or another slew of students had left UF, too frightened to remain in town.Sonja Larson, 18, of Deerfield Beach, and Christina Powell, 17, of Jacksonville, both UF freshmen, were the first to be found slain in their Williamsburg Village apartment on SW 16th Street on Aug. 26, 1990, the Sunday before classes were set to start.

The next day, officers located the body of 18-year-old Alachua County Sheriff's Office records clerk Christa Leigh Hoyt, of Archer, in the duplex apartment on SW 24th Avenue, where she lived alone.On Aug. 28, 1990, the bodies of Tracy Paules and Manuel "Manny" Taboada, both 23, high school friends from Miami, were discovered in their Gatorwood apartment off Archer Road.

The crime scenes were the worst he has ever seen, said Alachua County Sheriff's Lt. LeGran Hewitt, one of the officers assigned to a multi-agency joint task force investigating the killings.Each of the five students had been stabbed multiple times, sometimes as they struggled to overcome an attacker who surprised them as they slept or as they stepped into their apartment.

Three of the women were sexually battered. Some of the bodies had been mutilated and posed. One had been decapitated.Nine anxious months would pass after the killings before Rolling, a drifter and career criminal from Louisiana, was publicly named a suspect in 1991.And, although many college students returned to Gainesville about a week after the killings, others said it seemed like a lifetime before they felt safe in the city.

Media from around the state and world flocked to Gainesville, with then-CBS News anchor Dan Rather calling the city "perhaps the most dangerous place in America." Phone lines at law enforcement agencies registered thousands of calls from residents looking for information or offering tips, everything from reports that a boyfriend had behaved strangely to someone spotted wearing camouflage clothing.

Whistles and alarms were distributed to students. Concealed-weapon permit applications quickly rose in Alachua County. Then UF President John Lombardi told students who left town fearing for their safety they would be welcomed back without penalty., leaving professors trying to honor his promise.

Some people believed there was a Ted Bundy copycat on the loose, Mann recalled. A serial killer and rapist, Bundy had been executed in Florida the year before the attacks in Gainesville.Days after the bodies were discovered, officers were looking at several suspects, including a car salesman wanted in the mutilation-murder of his former girlfriend in Ohio. Also among them was a UF freshman, Edward Humphrey.

The 18-year-old had begun exhibiting bizarre behavior after he stopped taking medicine prescribed for manic depression and, when questioned by officers, implied he knew about the murders. Circumstantial evidence seemed to connect Humphrey to the slayings, such as a claim he had been romantically interested in one of the victims, dressed in military-type fatigues and went on late-night "reconnaissance missions" carrying a hunting knife.

In October 1990, Humphrey was convicted on a lesser charge of battery, after prosecutors alleged he had beaten his grandmother in Brevard County on Aug. 29, 1990. But he ultimately was dropped as a suspect in the Gainesville slayings.Still, some in Gainesville refused to accept Humphrey wasn't involved. Others speculated not one but two killers were stalking students. Just one person couldn't be responsible for the savage slayings, they reasoned.

Meanwhile, 10 days after the killings, Rolling had ended up in custody at the Marion County jail where he was being held on robbery charges. Then 36 years old, Rolling had a history of robbery and theft convictions and left Shreveport, La., shortly after he was accused of shooting his father, a retired police officer.

He was added to a list of suspects in the Gainesville slayings after Florida authorities learned he could be connected to a similar, triple killing in Louisiana. DNA evidence was gathered from Rolling, who had been jailed in September 1990, and compared to crime scene evidence.Hewitt, now with the Civil Bureau at the Sheriff's Office, interviewed Rolling at Florida State Prison near Starke where he first confessed to officers he was the killer.

In 1994, as jury selection began, Rolling entered a guilty plea to the slayings. "I've been running from first one thing and then the other my whole life . . .," Rolling said. "There are some things you just can't run away from, and this is one of those." The three-man, nine-woman jury unanimously agreed on the death penalty, a sentence later handed down by Circuit Judge Stan Morris.

Rolling, now 52, has been held at prisons in Bradford and Union counties during his years on Florida's Death Row. He has continued to draw and write poems, among them works that have made their way to online sites that sell collectibles from convicted killers.

Some thought Rolling's guilty plea, coupled with the heinous nature of his crimes, would speed up the appeals process."Five years," Mario Taboada yelled at the man who killed his brother, Manuel, in an Alachua County courtroom. "You're going down in five!"Instead, it was 12 years, about the average span of time for a death penalty appeal, before Gov. Jeb Bush signed Rolling's death warrant on Sept. 22.

Over the years, Rolling's lawyers have argued he should have been given a new sentencing hearing because it was impossible for an Alachua County jury, living in a community traumatized by the killings, to fairly hear the case.Questions over the state's lethal injection process have dominated the courts this year and have been at the heart of Rolling's latest appeals.

The U.S. Supreme Court had stayed one Florida Death Row inmate's execution in January to review if federal civil rights law could be used by an inmate to challenge the state's execution method. In June, the justices unanimously ruled lethal injection could be appealed as unconstitutionally cruel punishment and sent the case back to the lower courts.Weeks later Bush, who had halted executions while the appeal was before the U.S. Supreme Court, again started signing death warrants, saying he wanted to urge the courts to decide the case. Two inmates have since died by lethal injection.

Meanwhile, the state and federal courts have rejected arguments that lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.This week Rolling and his attorneys are waiting for a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court.Rolling's "infamous notoriety" has some worried over what will happen outside Florida State Prison if he's executed.

Death penalty opponents fear the scene could turn into a circus, reminiscent of the 1989 execution of serial killer Ted Bundy when hundreds gathered and cheered at news of his death. Officers expect a crowd, especially since the prison is less than an hour's drive from Gainesville.But Bradford County Sheriff Bob Milner, whose office helps provide security during executions, said deputies don't expect problems.

Like the families of Rolling's victims, Hewitt sees the execution, set for Wednesday, as a long-awaited, last step in a lengthy legal process. Many have called for Rolling's death. But it won't bring closure, he said."I believe that it's the final process in the judicial system that is owed to us as the public," Hewitt explained. "People talk about closure. But I don't believe closure will ever happen. The only way it would make it better would be if we could put the loved ones with their families. They've lost loved ones and there's no closure to that."